By Paul Lang, Editor, Sell It!
April 10th, 1999

See Also   Terrence Sherry and 1 World Sarongs   Andrew Bridgeman and eART-originals   Mark Annett and Scruplestore.com   David Sabot and Cheaphumidors.com   William Waite and Nemmelgeb Murr   Mary Lu Wason and LampLink   Michael Campbell and Cellwest   Bob Rankin and Flowers Fast   Louis Jay and Health4Her.com   Jeff Swearingen and TheGift.com   Bill Broadbent the T-Shirt King   Jim Goodbody and PlanetLearn   Todd Mogren and coastaltool.com   John D. Einhorn and CapShack.com   Beverley Wood and the Gift Ship   Sgt. David Hack and US Wings   Brenda Do and MindFood Media.com   Rory O'Connor and Shopirish.com

[This is the second part of a two part article. The first part can be read here].

Lang: What are your plans to develop the store over the coming 6-12 months

Swearingen: Obviously, we plan to evolve our merchandising strategy right away. We've also developed a technology that allows us to provide private label shopping applications for our strategic partners. All sites are looking to integrate e-commerce into their sites, but not everyone wants a warehouse, call centre and customer service. We can offer what we already do with someone else's front end on it. Look for sites selling our products and services soon with a "Powered by TheGift.com" icon on the screen.

We're further developing our affiliate program with a co-branded presentation and functions to enable the affiliate to create links to specific areas of the site. It's very important to automate these processes, or you'll get crushed.

We're developing member services, such as a reminder service that lets our members key in important dates they don't want to miss. We'll be glad to remind someone about his or her nephew's birthday with an e-mail. We may even have a special offer for them... The "sticky" factor is of critical importance for all Web sites.

We're extending our gift registry concept. We started with an on-line wedding gift registry and have now opened a baby gift registry. Obviously, the products on our site are targeted at these applications, we now have over 500 patterns of china, crystal and flatware for sale! We'll also develop a general gift registry to follow a customer through their important life events.

Lang: Why did you decide to launch an affiliate program? What software are you using to manage it?

Swearingen: We saw the success that Amazon was having signing up affiliates. As I mentioned, everyone wants to enable commerce on their site. However, the book programs pay only 5 - 15% commission and their average ticket is very low. We pay 20% and have an average sale of $85.00. An affiliate program is no-risk for the merchant since it's a pay for performance model.

I would warn anyone who thinks that they can put a thousand banners to Amazon, eToys and TheGift.com on their site and make any money. Our affiliates who are successful are the ones that take the time to truly understand what we offer and relay this to their customers. If you're not providing any value, a customer WILL NOT BUY anything and more importantly WILL NOT RETURN.

There seems to be a great proliferation of sites like www.reallybigsuperdupermegashoppingcenter.com. If anyone reading this is considering joining our affiliate program, or any other, please take the time to integrate the offering into your site. Our sites that feature a seasonal product, or even a description of our service outperform the "banner farms" by a factor of 20 : 1.

We developed our own tracking system. I would have loved to use a 3rd party service or product, but we have too highly specialised of an application.

Since we have a gift registry, our affiliates are paid not only on referred sales, but also sales from referred registries. If someone creates a wedding gift registry with us and has $1,000 in product purchased from it, we need to be able to credit 20% of the total amount to the affiliate.

Lang: Which methods have you used to try and promote your store? Which were most / least effective?

Swearingen: The least effective method for us has been run of site banners. I think the user has been trained to avoid anything in the shape of a banner. We bought some very low cost banners across a network and generated very little traffic and sales with it.

Our most effective promotions are our dedicated affiliates and partners. When we work together, we both succeed.

We've also been very happy with the performance of GoTo.com. If you have not seen their bidding search system, I highly recommend it for highly qualified reasonable cost traffic.

Lang: What are your top tip(s) for anyone considering opening his or her own Web store?

Swearingen: Jeff's top ten tip list for budding Web entrepreneurs:

1. Plan on everything taking longer than you think it will.
2. Plan on everything costing more than you think it will.
3. Automate everything that you can.
4. Have a specific mission. Don't try to own the world, it's too late.
5. Become a TheGift.com affiliate ;-)
6. Never buy run of site banners.
7. Subscribe to the I-Sales discussion group
8. Test, test, test. Then test again because the rules may have changed.
9. Figure out what your customers want and give it to them.
10. Have fun - it's a great time to be in the business.